Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a cancer of the bone marrow. What does that mean?? What is bone marrow? Bone marrow is the soft tissue on the inside of bones. It produces new blood cells, basically of 3 different types: Red blood cells: these cells carry oxygen in the blood, circulating around and taking oxygen to all the tissues in the body.Platelets: these help form clots and stop bleeding.White blood cells: these cells make up the immune system. They are the cells that fight infections and help the body get rid of bacteria and viruses and other bad things. AML is a cancer in which White blood cells are over-produced in the bone marrow extremely rapidly without enough time for them to mature. These early white blood cells are called blasts. Blasts normally are produced slowly and develop into mature white blood cells that fight infection. In AML, the blasts are produced too rapidly, not allowing maturation, and these immature cells are not able to properly fight infection. These are the leukemia cells. Since the bone marrow is busy producing immature, non-functional leukemia cells, it does not make enough red blood cells or platelets.
